The landscape of a nation is fundamental to how a nation is identified. Australia had a distinctive landscape, a landscape that consisted of deserts, grasslands, huge rocks and native flora and fauna. The thing that distinguished Australia from other nations were the copious amount of harsh bushes. That is until white settlement occurred and Australia’s landscape was altered forever. The harsh bushes weren’t wiped out completely, but its strange beauty did not remain the same. Saskia Beudel and Kate Rigby discuss their experiences of Australia’s landscape and distinguish the discrepancies between what was and what occurred next in “Desert Grasslands” and “Returning to Rocky Nob: Stray thoughts on Canberra.”
Imagine returning to a land you were
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Her fascination with these lands is evident through her experiences of the road trip she embarked on around the desert. In her travelling, her attention was drawn to how vulnerable the desert plants were. She wanted to contemplate about the environmental and the cultural history of the land, and through her fascination of the grasses, she found that they tell one story “of that conjoined history”. The desert had a way of seducing her to its “austerity and spare lines, tempting interpretation as pure nature, too harsh and unruly to be harnessed to prosaic economic purposes, as if existing only as itself.” The desert was autonomous, it can only be interpreted in one way, as nature per se. Her focus was mostly on Mount Leislar, which was a small area that was engulfed by bloodwood trees and “beautiful grass”. Almost more than a century later, despite white colonisation, the “very beautiful grasses, continue to thrive”. Anthropologist T.G.H. Strehlow speaks for the older Aboriginal people who had condemned environmental change. He speaks of how their country has been transformed into a desert by “the senseless whites”. Many of their native species became extinct through the introduction of new species like the rabbits. …show more content…
The reader feels a sense of affinity and attachment to the land and to the Aborigines through the contrast of how the land was when it was under the care of the Aboriginal people, to how the land became when the foreigners entered and created a land of their own without entirely obliterating what was there initially. The Australian landscape was a harsh environment and still is, as was continually mentioned by both authors. The two parties who have claim over the land differently, view it as a source of income and national identity (for the white settlers) and as a source of life and nurture (for the Aboriginals). The stark nature of the land and its vast expanses that consist of rocky paths, open horizons from all areas, and bushlands with native flora and fauna left me with an affinity to the land that was. I felt like I was a part of the changing landscape with the metaphors and the personification that were used: “the growing suburbs of Canberra continue to consume even more remnants of this rural world”. Both texts gave me an idea of how landscape has created such literature within Australian Literary Studies. How? The words they used to describe the Australian landscape were literary and created many effects. The bushlands and their
‘Triptych: Requiem, Of Grandeur, Empire’ by the contemporary artist, Gordon Bennett in 1989 is a series of three artworks that depict the Australian landscape through stylised means in combination with appropriated and geometrical imagery. Through this series, Bennett effectively showcases the impact Western European culture had upon Indigenous lives and cultures post colonisation and how it has led to the destruction of Aboriginal culture as a whole. This is portrayed through the excellent utilisation of appropriated imagery, diverse art styles, and visual metaphors within his work.
Jedda, Australia’s first colour film, created in 1955 by Charles Chauvel deals with an Aboriginal child adopted by a white grazing family. As she grows up, Jedda is tempted more and more to return to her people. Seduced by the wild Marbuck, she partakes in the film's tragedy, played out against a spectacular landscape. This essay seeks to discuss the representations of the Australian landscape as portrayed in the film Jedda, highlighting the use of filmic techniques in these representations.
Without the use of stereotypical behaviours or even language is known universally, the naming of certain places in, but not really known to, Australia in ‘Drifters’ and ‘Reverie of a Swimmer’ convoluted with the overall message of the poems. The story of ‘Drifters’ looks at a family that moves around so much, that they feel as though they don’t belong. By utilising metaphors of planting in a ‘“vegetable-patch”, Dawe is referring to the family making roots, or settling down somewhere, which the audience assumes doesn’t occur, as the “green tomatoes are picked by off the vine”. The idea of feeling secure and settling down can be applied to any country and isn’t a stereotypical Australian behaviour - unless it is, in fact, referring to the continental
In Reading Tim Wintons hopeful saga, Cloudstreet, you are immersed in Australia; it is an important story in showing the change in values that urbanisation brought to Perth in the late 1950’s such as confidence and pride. But it was also a very anxious and fearful time period in terms of the Nedlands Monster and his impact in changing the current comfortable, breezy system Perth lived in. The role of women changed significantly with more women adopting more ambitious ideologies and engaging in the workforce something never seen before. But most of all it was important because it changed Australia’s priorities as a nation, it shaped the identity of individuals that we now see today, and it created a very unique Australian identity.
The distinctively visual provides a means of which a composer can connect with his or her audience in order to create a clear, distinct visual image of other people and their worlds - conveyed through the use of visual or literary techniques in their media. Composers such as Henry Lawson and Dorothea Mackellar are able to effectively depict an image through an exceptional use of language and techniques that help shape our understanding of the Australian people and their world. In particular, Henry Lawson’s short stories ‘The Drover’s Wife’ and ‘The Loaded Dog’ and the Dorothea Mackellar Poem ‘My Country’ are able to effectively depict the unique environment of the Australian bush landscape.
Australia is a very unique place, along with our multiculturalism there is also a strong heritage surrounding us. At first thought of Australian heritage we think about such landmarks as Uluru, The Sydney harbour bridge and The Sydney opera house, The Great Barrier reef and other internationally recognised places. But our heritage goes much deeper than that; it is far more than outstanding icons. Along with these icons there are also unsung places like the old cattle stations, Aboriginal missions, migrant hostels, War memorials, our unique wetlands and the towns and cities we have built. Adding all of these things together, helps to tell the story of who we are and how we have shaped this land in the unique identity it has today.
The suburban house, as the film’s setting and sphere of action, is extraordinary partly because it is ‘next-door’ to an airport. The odd layout of this backyard is underlined because their suburb meets the kind of architectural cast-offs often found at the margins of big cities. This mix of the humble backyard with the international vectors of travel, tourism and international trade plays out in the film’s narrative which connects the domestic and the distant. The Castle displays many locations and landscapes easily identified as being unique of Australia- The ‘Aussy’ barbeque and patio setup, greyhound racetrack and poolroom, just to name a few. The neighbours of the Kerrigan’s are a symbol representing the multicultural diversi...
Discussing Mount Wilson developing as a town, Tom emphasises his disappointment towards destruction of the flora and fauna in the area due to progress. In contrast, the focus of A Blue Mountains House and its Owners: Green Gables at Wentworth Falls is a building and the surrounding grounds. However, David E. Kyvig and Myron A. Marty state buildings are ‘symbolic, representing at least the necessities of one or more persons at a given time and place’, thereby similarly representing the human story. The article details construction of, and the alterations made to a house now named Green Gables, possibly the oldest house in Wentworth Falls. The article described by the author as the ‘life story of the house’, documents the changes to both the house and the surrounding gardens, whilst offering a brief insight into some of the owners of the house and their contributions made to the village of Wentworth Falls. Comparable to Tracking the Dragon: the history of the Chinese in the Temora district of New South Wales, this essay expands over a century of time and comprises of many generations, whereas, the oral interviews focus covers a brief period of time, it is reminiscent of one man’s
This means looking back at the arrival of Europeans, particularly the legal and political system that were used in the apparent legitimisation of the invasion. Colonisation occurred in 1700’s when Australian soil first became ‘occupied’, not by the indigenous Australians who had lived with and upon the land for centuries before but rather by European colonial fleets who had been in search of undiscovered land. The act of occupation occurred through compliance with international law and the legal doctrine of discovery of uninhabited land; terra nullius. The Australian land was declared void not of inhabitants but rather of ‘organised society united permanently for political action.’ It was declared that those who inhabited the land when it was discovered had no local laws, and as such no
Rosie Gascoigne, is an artist who has aspired an appreciation for undiserable remnants and utilised with them in purpose to produce an assemblage of work that sees into a reflection of the past and present landscape of Australian society. Her growing motivation has taken further interest and development as the founding layers of her work through her deliberate perception, subject to the preservation of the environment and surrounding landscape. Gascoigne’s work offers an insight into deep country outback life of an Australian individual and introduces conceptualities that mirror a focus situated about ‘re-using’, ‘ recycling’ and understanding the insightful meaning present within everyday remnants. Her work is a collective gathering of selected materials to form a composition or an
- What/how does it tell us about living in Australia during times past? (100 - 150 words)
Livesey, G 2009, ‘A Look at Landscape Urbanism’, Canadian Architect, viewed 23 May 2011, < http://www.canadianarchitect.com/issues/story.aspx?aid=1000348459&PC=>.
Robert Frost's 'Desert Places' is a testament to the harrowing nature of solidarity. By subjecting the narrator to the final moments of daylight on a snowy evening, an understanding about the nature of blank spaces and emptiness becomes guratively
This is an incredible paragraph extracted from Bora Ring. This poem depicts perfectly of the European invasion of Australia. It shows how the traditions and stories are gone, how the hunting and rituals are gone and ‘lost in an alien tale’, the Europeans being the aliens. This poem also describes that it seemed as if the tradition of Aborigines was ‘breathed sleeping and forgot’. These are powerful words Judith Wright used to show how they Aborigines were quickly invaded and ‘forgotten’. This poem is an excellent example of why Australian students should study her poetry.
Several authors have based some of their writings on their spirituality. Some of these writings are as intricate as the Bible or as basic as an article in a local newspaper, but the meaning and passion behind them should never be doubted. In Leslie Marmon Silko's "Landscape, History, and the Pueblo Imagination", she expresses how her people have a very different meaning of "landscape". To Silko's people, the popular definition of landscape as being "a portion of territory the eye can comprehend in a single view" makes it seem as though the viewer is on the outside looking in. To them, the term landscape is much more than that. One cannot leave their surroundings, the earth and nature are always around us and we are always interconnected. The ancie...